Great Expectations eBook

I was so unwilling to see the look again, that I made
no remonstrance against this tone.

“Well, Sir,” pursued Joe, “this
is how it were. I were at the Bargemen t’other
night, Pip;” whenever he subsided into affection,
he called me Pip, and whenever he relapsed into politeness
he called me Sir; “when there come up in his
shay-cart, Pumblechook. Which that same identical,”
said Joe, going down a new track, “do comb my
’air the wrong way sometimes, awful, by giving
out up and down town as it were him which ever had
your infant companionation and were looked upon as
a playfellow by yourself.”

“Nonsense. It was you, Joe.”

“Which I fully believed it were, Pip,”
said Joe, slightly tossing his head, “though
it signify little now, Sir. Well, Pip; this same
identical, which his manners is given to blusterous,
come to me at the Bargemen (wot a pipe and a pint
of beer do give refreshment to the working-man, Sir,
and do not over stimilate), and his word were, ‘Joseph,
Miss Havisham she wish to speak to you.’”

“Miss Havisham, Joe?”

“‘She wish,’ were Pumblechook’s
word, ‘to speak to you.’” Joe sat
and rolled his eyes at the ceiling.

“Yes, Joe? Go on, please.”

“Next day, Sir,” said Joe, looking at
me as if I were a long way off, “having cleaned
myself, I go and I see Miss A.”

“Miss A., Joe? Miss Havisham?”

“Which I say, Sir,” replied Joe, with
an air of legal formality, as if he were making his
will, “Miss A., or otherways Havisham.
Her expression air then as follering: ’Mr.
Gargery. You air in correspondence with Mr.
Pip?’ Having had a letter from you, I were
able to say ‘I am.’ (When I married your
sister, Sir, I said ’I will;’ and when
I answered your friend, Pip, I said ‘I am.’)
’Would you tell him, then,’ said she,
’that which Estella has come home and would
be glad to see him.’”

I felt my face fire up as I looked at Joe. I
hope one remote cause of its firing, may have been
my consciousness that if I had known his errand, I
should have given him more encouragement.

“Biddy,” pursued Joe, “when I got
home and asked her fur to write the message to you,
a little hung back. Biddy says, ’I know
he will be very glad to have it by word of mouth,
it is holidaytime, you want to see him, go!’
I have now concluded, Sir,” said Joe, rising
from his chair, “and, Pip, I wish you ever well
and ever prospering to a greater and a greater heighth.”

“But you are not going now, Joe?”

“Yes I am,” said Joe.

“But you are coming back to dinner, Joe?”

“No I am not,” said Joe.

Our eyes met, and all the “Sir” melted
out of that manly heart as he gave me his hand.